1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device of the tobacco processing industry for supplying ground or cut tobacco material having at least 35% moisture content to a portioning device. The device includes a conveyor device, a homogenizing device and a portioning device. The invention further relates to a method for supplying ground or cut tobacco material having at least 35% moisture content to a portioning device, in which ground tobacco material is supplied by a conveyor device to a homogenizing device, and a use of a homogenizing device.
2. Discussion of Background Information
The invention therefore relates to the field of processing and portioning of ground or cut tobacco material having high moisture content. The tobacco material may include ground or cut tobacco and possibly additives. Here, the cut length is short so that the cut moist tobacco material has a consistency comparable to that of ground moist tobacco material. Such moist ground or cut tobacco material is offered as so-called “SNUS” tobacco or smokeless tobacco, and is used orally, i.e., in the oral cavity. SNUS tobacco has a moistness of approximately 35% to 50% or more, and is a fine-grained, clumpy substance that has a consistency similar to that of moist coffee grounds.
For consumption, SNUS tobacco in some cases has added flavorings, for instance, menthol, ammonium chloride (salmiac) or other flavors, and is packaged in portions of 0.5 to 2 grams in so-called SNUS bags. This so-called “pouch” is a porous paper that is sealed all around, but is water permeable, and dispenses the contents of the pouch to the area of the mouth and the mucous membranes of the mouth. The most common portion size is approximately 1 gram per portion. After consumption, the pouch is removed from the mouth, and disposed of.
Because a ground or, in particular, short, cut tobacco material having a moisture content of 35% or more is very clumpy as a fine-grained loose material, it is difficult to process. From the prior art, it is known to process the tobacco material having a lower moisture, as such lower moisture tobacco material does not clump, and to fill portion bags or pouches with the processed lower moisture tobacco material. In a subsequent processing step, the portion bags are then moistened in order to bring the tobacco material to the desired moisture. Because during this wet treatment, contents are leached out of the tobacco material, these permeate into the also wet, porous paper of the portion bag and stain it non-uniformly. To conceal this, in some cases, black or dark paper is used, so that the corresponding staining is less noticeable.
In alternate known methods, the ground or cut tobacco material is processed in a moist state. For this purpose, the loose material is sieved. However, sieving of a ground tobacco material having a moisture content of 35% or more is associated with the formation of bridges of clumped material in the sieve such that the sieves and additional components of the corresponding processing devices must be thoroughly cleaned on a regular basis.
Homogenizing, such as is achieved through sieving, is very important in the processing of moist fine-grained loose material that has a tendency to clump, because only in this manner can it be guaranteed that a reproducibly consistent quantity of tobacco material is contained in each portion bag. The requirements on the constancy of the portion bag contents are approximately 5%, which means that with a portion bag having contents of approximately one gram, the accuracy of the filled contents is approximately 0.05 grams. Slight clumps in moist ground or cut tobacco materials lend themselves to exceeding these tolerances during portioning, which results in an undesired rejection of the portion bags due to exceeding or falling below the weight tolerance.
Devices for portioning and filling homogenized, moist, ground or cut tobacco material into portion bags are known. A corresponding device is sold by the MediSeal GmbH company under the name TS 1000. In this device, the tobacco material is filled into a pre-dosing chamber and subsequently filled into an open portion bag that is subsequently sealed.